The National Cancer Registry has found that while the rate of the disease fell in the UK between 1994 and 2008, there was a rise here.

Cervical cancer is a disease of the cervix at the entrance to the womb and is the second most common cancer in Ireland among women aged 15 to 44.

About 250 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in Ireland each year, with 80 patients dying of it, mainly due to the delay in introducing the screening programme.

A change in sexual habits was one reason, as Irish women had more sexual partners than previously.

Other risk factors highlighted for the disease were smoking, use of oral contraceptives, and a high number of full-term pregnancies.

Commenting on the figures statistician Dr Katie O’Brien, who conducted the research said: “Mortality is dipping a small bit. It dropped off fast in countries that had a screening programme, but because we didn’t in Ireland it remained constant.”

The study also found that women living in the most deprived areas of Ireland were twice as likely to develop the disease.

In 2008 Ireland launched a national screening programme, Cervical Check, some 20 years after it has been available in the UK.

Dr O’Brien said Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England are capturing the pre-invasive cancer through the screening process.

She said evidence that cervical screening is effective has been available for the past decade or two.

According to Dr Lorraine Walsh, a consultant radiation oncologist at University Hospital Limerick, the delay in implementing a screening programme was mainly financial.

She said: “You have to be able to do something with the results (of the screening), and have the services in place to treat a patient appropriately.”

The main cause of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is often sexually transmitted.